Snapchat Now Beats Instagram Among Teen Users

The Snapchat app is seen on an on Apple's iPhone 5s displayed for a photograph in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2015.Photograph by Andrew Harrer—Bloomberg via Getty Images

Snapchat has surpassed Instagram as the social media bae of choice among teenagers, according to a study done by Piper Jaffray.

In the semi-annual “Taking Stock With Teens” study conducted by analysts at the investment firm, Snapchat took 28% of the votes for the most important social network among 6,350 U.S. teenagers surveyed, who averaged around 17 years of age.

That number is up from the 19% who sided with Snapchat in the Fall 2015 survey, and more importantly, meant that the mobile app had surpassed Instagram, which had 27% of the vote this round compared with 33% last fall.

“As we stated in the Fall, we expected Snapchat to surpass Twitter in the Spring, but did not expect it to jump over Instagram,” the analysts wrote in a presentation provided to Fortune.

Such was the dominance of Snapchat and Instagram, that analysts believed there are tiers of importance forming among teenage users. “We view Instagram and Snapchat in a class of their own followed by Facebook (FB) and Twitter (TWTR),” the presentation stated.

Other insights gleaned from Piper Jaffray: total teen spending seems to be down 4% over the last spring-to-fall period, and when it came to fashion-related items, spending dropped by 6% year-on-year. Analysts noted that parent contributions to teenage spending was at its lowest levels since 2010, although it could be attributed to “more kids taking on part-time employment” versus economic-related reasons.